Erika Donalds, a Collier County school board member, has proposed a handful of amendments to the state's constitution that could change the way Florida licenses charter schools and regulates certain small businesses.

Donalds is a member of the state's constitutional revision commission, which forms once every 20 years to put potential amendments on the ballot. The 37-member commission will whittle down 103 proposals over the next two months before finalizing a list of amendments for voters to decide in November.

Donalds spoke Monday before an at-times-skeptical crowd at the Collier County League of Women Voters about six proposed amendments she is trying to push forward.

One proposal would allow the state to create a new body to license and govern charter schools. The amendment would allow charter schools to avoid getting approval from their district’s school board by potentially getting that approval and oversight from the state.

The problem is school districts often do not want charter schools and have no interest in overseeing their operations, Donalds said.

"There are school boards that do not want anything to do with authorizing a charter school," she said. "In some cases, the districts do not want them to succeed because they want those students back in public school, and there's a conflict of interest."

Florida has struggled for years in evaluating who is capable of running a charter school. The state's system has fostered many successful schools but has also allowed dozens of ill-prepared operators to educate children and repeat failures to keep getting access to millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Several members of the crowd said Donald's proposal could make it easier for charter schools to open, saying they were concerned by the number of failing charters in Florida.

Donalds said she believes the amendment would lead to more scrutiny and better oversight of the charters that are approved because it won't be up to school districts to keep an eye on their finances and academic performances.

"There have been cases where schools were allowed to stay open too long, and that could be because the districts that were overseeing them were doing it out of duress," Donalds said. "This is about putting a more focused effort on authorizing high-quality charters and seeing to it that those that are not high quality are quickly closed."

Donalds has also proposed an amendment that would make it harder for the state to require certain professions and trades to be licensed.

Under the new language, the state would have to prove that a license serves the public interest.

"Right now the government doesn't have to prove there's a need, so they've created these licenses that have been pushed by lobbyists to keep competition away," Donalds said.

Interior designers need to be licensed by the state to operate in Florida.

"Interior designers," Donalds said. "They're picking couches. They're picking rugs. Why do they need a license from the state to do that? It's really just a barrier to entry."

Donalds has also proposed eliminating pay for school board members, requiring that school superintendents be appointed and not elected and imposing two-term limits on school board members.

One amendment would expand the state’s school voucher system, which allows public tax dollars to follow students to private schools.

It's unclear how many amendments the constitutional revision commission will bring before voters. This is just the third time the commission has met since it was created in the 1960s. In 1998 the commission placed nine amendments on the ballot, eight of which were approved by voters.

Donalds is married to Republican state Rep. Byron Donalds and was appointed to the commission by Republican House Speaker Richard Corcoran.

The 37 members of the commission were appointed almost entirely by Republicans, as all but four seats are selected by the governor, Senate president and House speaker — all Republicans. The chief justice of the state Supreme Court, who was appointed by then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, also selects three members, and Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi has an automatic seat on the commission.

Commissioners will vote in the spring to decide which proposals will be placed on the November ballot. Twenty-two of the 37 commissioners must vote in favor of a proposal for it to make it before voters. At least 60 percent of voters must approve any amendment for it to pass.